It’s common in sports to see people repeat phrases to honor its stars (or shorten their names). It always seemed wrong – if understandable – that LaDainian Tomlinson was called “LT” after Lawrence Taylor owned it. It kinda felt the same way when Game 7 OT hero Joel Ward evoked Marshawn Lynch’s shtick when describing Braden Holtby’s great play during a 4-3 series win.

“He’s been in beast mode,” Ward said.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s a fine phrase, just not the ideal one.

Honestly, with the way he didn’t even react to Rich Peverley’s slash threat, I think I’d evoke the “ice water in veins” cliches. I’ll open the floor for some cool nicknames for Holtby then – give it your best shot.

(Editor’s note: if Ward was somehow making a reference to that so-bad-it-was-good Sega game “Altered Beast,” then I retract any criticisms I just made.)

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.